In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic ...
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In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of internationalizing American studies approaches by including non-U.S. scholars, but rather to explore how cultural forms circulate transnationally and are shaped by, and contribute to, international geopolitical contexts. With an introduction by the editors, these essays focus on the cultural politics of the U.S. engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitics of American involvement with the uprisings of the Arab Spring, making a crucial intervention in the growing subfield of transnational American Studies. Featuring a diverse list of contributors from the United States, the Arab world, and beyond, America Studies Encounters the Middle East analyzes Arab-American relations by looking at the War on Terror, pop culture, and the influence of the American hegemony in a time of revolution.Less

American Studies Encounters the Middle East

Published in print: 2016-09-12

In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of internationalizing American studies approaches by including non-U.S. scholars, but rather to explore how cultural forms circulate transnationally and are shaped by, and contribute to, international geopolitical contexts. With an introduction by the editors, these essays focus on the cultural politics of the U.S. engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitics of American involvement with the uprisings of the Arab Spring, making a crucial intervention in the growing subfield of transnational American Studies. Featuring a diverse list of contributors from the United States, the Arab world, and beyond, America Studies Encounters the Middle East analyzes Arab-American relations by looking at the War on Terror, pop culture, and the influence of the American hegemony in a time of revolution.

“Us Versus Them” explores the political and cultural turmoil that prompted U.S. policymakers to shift their attention from containing the “Red Threat” of international communism to combatting the ...
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“Us Versus Them” explores the political and cultural turmoil that prompted U.S. policymakers to shift their attention from containing the “Red Threat” of international communism to combatting the “Green Threat” of radical Islam after 1989. By framing the confrontation with Islamic extremism after the Cold War through the lens of “us versus them” that had pitted Uncle Sam against Native Americans, Asian immigrants, Nazis, and eventually the Bolsheviks in the Kremlin, U.S. policymakers from George H. W. Bush through Barack Obama placed America on a collision course with the Muslim world. Because the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to prove that “containment” had served U.S. interests well, preserving access to Persian Gulf oil while protecting Israel and preventing communist subversion, American officials were reluctant to redefine their approach to the Middle East. While American leaders were busy expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, attempting to broker peace between Arabs Israelis at Camp David, invading Afghanistan and Iraq, or unleashing drone strikes against Pakistan and Yemen, they inadvertently triggered an Islamic backlash that made America less secure and more vulnerable. Indeed, from the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Bill Clinton’s efforts to contain Iraq and Iran to George W. Bush’s global war on terror and the ongoing battle against ISIS today, U.S. foreign policy has been governed by “us versus them” thinking, with Islamophobia supplanting the threats of yesteryear.Less

Us versus Them : "The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat"

Douglas Little

Published in print: 2016-05-02

“Us Versus Them” explores the political and cultural turmoil that prompted U.S. policymakers to shift their attention from containing the “Red Threat” of international communism to combatting the “Green Threat” of radical Islam after 1989. By framing the confrontation with Islamic extremism after the Cold War through the lens of “us versus them” that had pitted Uncle Sam against Native Americans, Asian immigrants, Nazis, and eventually the Bolsheviks in the Kremlin, U.S. policymakers from George H. W. Bush through Barack Obama placed America on a collision course with the Muslim world. Because the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to prove that “containment” had served U.S. interests well, preserving access to Persian Gulf oil while protecting Israel and preventing communist subversion, American officials were reluctant to redefine their approach to the Middle East. While American leaders were busy expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, attempting to broker peace between Arabs Israelis at Camp David, invading Afghanistan and Iraq, or unleashing drone strikes against Pakistan and Yemen, they inadvertently triggered an Islamic backlash that made America less secure and more vulnerable. Indeed, from the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Bill Clinton’s efforts to contain Iraq and Iran to George W. Bush’s global war on terror and the ongoing battle against ISIS today, U.S. foreign policy has been governed by “us versus them” thinking, with Islamophobia supplanting the threats of yesteryear.

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